When Negi wakes up from being dragged somewhere by the darkness, he finds himself surrounded by his students in a world of stacked desks. Soon after, he comes face to face with a dark monster and flings some desks at it with his magic before fleeing with everyone else. Back in the other world, Takamichi is explaining to the girls that the Star Crystal created this magical world, but when he tries to look for Negi using his magic, the trees around them starts reacting. Takamichi and Nekane are forced to put up and maintain a barrier to protect everyone, meaning that the only other magic user left who can look for Negi is Eva. Although Eva refuses to do it at first, she reconsiders when Asuna threatens her with a harisen. Eva’s magic produces an image of Negi running away with everyone in the class, except the girls know that the girls that Negi is currently with are fake. Inside that world, Negi and the girls have reached a dead end where the stack of desks drop off to a black void. Even though Negi can’t hear them, Takamichi and Nekane yell for him not to go down into the netherworld – the black hole of the magic world. Fortunately, Negi figures out that the students he is with are fake and blasts them with his magic after they all merge into the creeping darkness.

Negi then finds himself back at the magic academy, and Anya appears behind him. Even though Negi is sure that she’s an illusion, Anya insists that she’s real and reminds Negi of his past. Since Negi demands that she return the real Anya, she transports him to a space with a room-sized orrery as a centerpiece. Anya shows him how she had taken the Star Crystal by her own will because of how she resented Negi being blessed with friends and companions. She then attacks him with magic, but even as he lies on the ground, Negi still wants the real Anya returned. Faced with another attacked by this Anya, Negi’s staff starts glowing and all the girls get transported through their pactio cards to him. The cards protect him with a shield and then help him with the spell that destroys the orrery. The fake Anya formed by the darkness disappears, and Negi sees that the real Anya had been held inside the orrery the entire time. He tries to save her as everything crumbles around them, but she starts getting pulled into the black hole below them. Unable to stay afloat in the air, Negi also gets pulled down with her by the Star Crystal’s magic. Blaming herself for everything, Anya tries to get Negi to let go of her and save himself, but he refuses.

It is during this desperate situation that Takamichi and Nekane notice something penetrating its way into the magical world, which Shichimi and Motsu identify as their master. That person is Nagi Springfield, and he saves his son and Anya from the Star Crystal. By the time Negi opens his eyes again, he and everyone else have been returned to the real world, and the Star Crystal has been sealed up. Negi is able to hug Anya in relief, and everyone enjoys the sunrise as if they had just been through a dream.

I was at least a little surprised to see the world from the opening sequence make an appearance in this episode, but it does give a feeling that (finally) everything ties together. Nagi coming to save Negi was also unexpected, though I wouldn’t call it that surprising since there were only a handful of people who could have come from the real world to save him, and his father was the best candidate. In any case, getting to see Nagi was exciting and I wish he could have stuck around a little longer, if for no other reason than to see him interact with Eva.
Overall, it was clear that this episode is where all the animation money went, cause it looked tons better than last week. But now that Negi and company returned to the real world and the Star Crystal storyline has more or less been resolved, I’m not sure what the final two episodes will cover. I’m certainly hoping that this series ends on a high note…

@ Sin Ansem: I was referring to what you quoted: ““With regard to fansubs: Negima is cursed. It’s a repeat of 2 years ago…””. I would like to know what happened 2 years ago.
also, Mahora’s TL betrayed them??? Why? They should finish what they started.

Get a load of the buzz about a “live action” Negima to be announced in April.
I’d call that a “wtf?” moment. Considering the cast size, the special effects and makeup, and the CGI needed — they’d need a whopping budget. Noise says its destined for a late night slot.

I think its going to be a big disaster but then it’ll be fascinating watching them try, fail or succeed.

Yet another lameass excuse for a story plot. The “ploy” sucked, the episode sucked. the whole damn cartoon sucks. What a major waste of effort, time, money, and resources. This cartoon needs to be wiped from the face of the earth FOREVER!

A Negima live-action series? o_O For real? I don’t know if I’d be able to watch that… Normal jdramas already make me cringe, so I doubt I’d be able to sit through what I’m sure is going to be stiff acting and bad special effects. Instead of a live-action series, I wish they’d make a new Negima series/second season/OVA series that follows the manga’s storyline right after the Kyoto arc.

Sori don’t bother with my first post
Hudson…. This is about to end so please, Don’t ruin it. Remember that “Oft evil shall evil mar”.
Also I am announcing I am quitting the NodokaXSetsuna-fan cosplay and go for the loli-Eva instead. I am also announcing that I am now a loli-pedo-fiend because suprised Eva is 100% sparkling MOE!

Zefiris….i doubt there’s any good konosetsu moments. My hopes for konosetsu is growing thinner and thinner with 2 eps to go… I’ve stopped watching the anime in full since the last konosetsu where they were by the riverside and Kono-chan initiating a kiss.
Come on…bring on konosetsu already….

Managed to get access to a really fat pipe and caught up on the raws… kind of fifty fifty feelings at this point … for every five seconds I enjoyed the hell out of, there were five seconds of (yawn, yeah, yeah…. right, whatever). Just… not… one.. of .. Shinbo’s finest (imo) from a Shinborific view (just felt like his knob was set to ’5′). Also kind of disappointing overall from a Negima-minion view in that just as you were getting a nice moment with character X, they’d cut to Y, Z, and then cut away completely.

My favorite bits are with the Kono-Secchan duo, the Eva-Takamichi duo, Asuna’s hair, anytime Kaede or Mana was onscreen (guilty pleasures), Nodoka/Yue, and much as Motsu annoyed – he has some great lines. And, of course, it was pretty to watch in general.

If subs for Negima!? haven’t stopped then I’m glad to hear that, as I’m interested in being able to finish the series without having to watch raws.

A live-action movie for Negima would be interesting but, I doubt it will be anything close to the anime with all the special effects and randomness. I just hope that they don’t make it too serious since one of the main things I enjoyed about Negima!? is the comedy and all the random moments (as well as all the magic and cute girls ^^;). I also hope that they’ll get a good actress to play as Nodoka.

I don’t get why they didn’t just make a straight-up adaption of the MSN manga instead of two travesties and a third will-suck-due-to-budget live-action series. The manga is GREAT, and the anime ruined it.